The Star Wars universe provides a unique opportunity for game developers to place familiar characters and settings into any genre they choose. Just this year, we’ve reviewed a Star Wars console RPG, collectible card game, and second Angry Birds spin-off. Now Disney has recruited Tiny Tower creators Nimblebit to build a Star Wars version of their popular freemium tower-building simulation. We spent some time with Tiny Death Star, which is available now in New Zealand and will be blowing up the entire planet soon.

If you’ve played Tiny Tower, you’ll instantly be familiar with the basics of Tiny Death Star. In the opening sequence, Emperor Palpatine summons an adorably low-resolution Darth Vader and instructs him to build a shopping plaza within the Death Star that can help fund its construction. This premise seems a bit weak, since the Death Star is supposed to be a world-destroying battleship and not a mall, but it does give the developers an excuse to cram a variety of Star Wars locations in one place.

Your Death Star’s shopping, residential, and recreation centers are built vertically, and not in a spheroid shape like the Death Star itself. It would have been nice to see the levels wrap around in a circle, to combine the two distinct visual styles. If you don’t think of Tiny Death Star as part of the official Star Wars canon, that might be enough to keep fans from raging against game’s unusual concept.

Your first task is to build apartments for the galactic “bitizens”, who are pixelated peons that will live and work in your tower. You will also be visited by the occasional Star Wars hero, like Luke Skywalker or Princess Leia, but we can only assume that they’re gathering intelligence for a Rebel attack. Again, don’t think too hard about the plot complications in Tiny Death Star, or the lack of logic may cause a mental short-circuit.

The bitizens look fantastic, due to the fact that you can randomize them with costumes inspired by a hundred Star Wars background characters. While cycling through outfits, your character may tie their hair into a pair of buns, or don an X-wing fighter’s jumpsuit. More than anything else in Tiny Death Star, we think that the randomized bitizen outfits help settle this game in the Star Wars universe.

The rest of the game seems to be a straightforward reskin of Tiny Tower. Instead of coffee shops, you’ll build cantinas that serve blue milk and womprat stew, which you’ll have to press a button to stock. Then, you can sit back and wait for the credits to roll in. Just like in Tiny Tower, you can hurry along production using Galactic Bucks, or you can save them up for larger purchases like hero characters. Special Imperial levels, such as interrogation rooms, are built below the main tower and provide unique missions that serve the Emperor’s primary goals.

We praised Tiny Tower two years ago for its original concept, and Tiny Death Star doesn’t make too many changes to the formula, except to add lots of Star Wars-themed artwork. One subtle addition is “scenes”, which are animated encounters that randomly appear when special characters enter a particular level. The one we saw featured Jar Jar Binks wrecking the cantina by slurping up a frog dangling from the ceiling. These scenes are automatically saved so you can view them later, which makes Tiny Death Star feel slightly more cinematic than the original Tiny Tower.

The Star Wars license alone will probably encourage lots of players to download this freemium app, but they might also be confused by the gameplay mechanics held over from Tiny Tower. If you’re a Star Wars fan, you probably won’t understand why you have to wait so long for basic supplies to stock, or why the Rebel Alliance would rent an apartment inside the Emperor’s interstellar weapon of mass destruction. The lack of a logical explanation for these events is disconcerting, until you accept the true reasoning behind them: With Nimblebit and Disney joining forces, they can rule the App Store.

If you were following us on Twitter last night, you would have seen a series of tweets from an extravagant party in San Francisco thrown by ZeptoLab, the creators of the Cut The Rope series. Between the giant outdoor projectors, costumed detectives, and up-close magic shows, we heard a very important announcement: Cut The Rope 2 will be available on the App Store in two weeks, and we had an early opportunity to try it out. (more…)

Last year’s The Room from Fireproof Games was a smash success, generating over a million paid downloads and earning the honor of Apple’s iPad Game of the Year. It’s an intricate puzzle game, featuring a realistically rendered safe with dozens of clockwork latches and hidden compartments. Next week, Fireproof Games will release The Room 2, and we can tell they’ve taken this compelling concept even further. (more…)

With Assassin’s Creed: Black Flag available now on consoles, iOS gamers might be feeling a little left out. Fortunately, Ubisoft is releasing a mobile-specific pirate game set in the world of Assassin’s Creed on December 5, so you’ll be able to set sail with a crew of salty dogs from just about anywhere. We had a chance to go hands-on with an early build, so read on for our impressions.

Deus Ex on mobile seems like and odd combination. Generally speaking, Deus Ex has always been the grown-up shooter/RPG– there’s no running around recklessly circle-strafing the AI to death here. The gameplay is thoughtful. For that reason, the franchise has garnered a fierce following that is understandably skeptical about whether iOS and Android can handle hosting Deus Ex: The Fall. (more…)

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Industrial Toys has released it’s follow-up to the great Midnight Star. In Renegade, a much more casual game, the focus is on short bursts of play and the never-ending constant upgrading of weapons and gear. This game brings the great controls for a mobile FPS that the previous version had, but focuses less on the story and more on the frantic gameplay.

Heroes of Loot 2 is an update to the original that brings even more to love of the original. This time around the player chooses two player types to take into the dungeon, switching between them in the game as needed.

Heroes of Loot 2 is 50% off right now for launch.

After their job, of keeping the dungeons in balance, was done, our heroes needed a new job. Roaming the lands they found a call for heroes, a castle in need, possible even a damsel in distress?

Pick two heroes to take into the adventure, controlling both heroes and using their special skills to navigate the dangerous castle hallways, rooms and floors. Switching between the two characters to solve quests, puzzles, and of course clear the dungeons of all evil.

Human Resources Corporation, from some of the same fine folks that brought us World of Goo is a puzzle games that makes some of the basics of programming into a fun little exercise.

The premise is that the player is a new recruit in a corporation that need to tell other in game characters how to move and act by giving a set of program commands to complete tasks. It’s a great introduction to the logic used in programming and a fun little game with great personality. Which is expected considering the team that created this.

Temple Run 2 has done it again. Expanded into a whole new world with the Blazing Sands expansion. Available now in the game.

Touch Arcade notes:

It’s called “Blazing Sands,” and as you can see from the above trailer, you’ll be running through canyons along side raging rapids and Egyptian-y looking statues while marauding vines are smacking you in the face… Which really isn’t much of a surprise as vines in video games seem to be jerks almost 100% of the time. Of course there’s new stuff to unlock too between new outfits and Blazing Sands artifacts. If you collect ’em all, you’ll even get a swanky new hat.

From Martin Magni, the developer of the great Odd Bot Out, Mekorama hit the App Store this week. This charming puzzle game has the player guide a robot through a series of very unique 3D puzzles. The puzzles have shades of Monument Valley without the Escher inspired vibe.

One of the features that really sets this game apart from others is the integrated level editor. This lets players create their own levels and share them via a simple QR code integrated image. Take a look at the new levels shared on Twitter with the #Mekorama hashtag. I’ve even created one to test the path finding skills of that little robot.

Mekorama is free in the App Store with a pay what you want price model.

There have been a lot of games that have aped the style of Monument Valley, but not that have really gotten the idea and complexity of the game. That is until Evo Explores. Evo Explores really understand the game and does a great job of adding puzzle types to the original that it unashamedly takes inspiration from. It’s so good that members of the Monument Valley team have remarked how impressed they are.

But beside that, the game can stand on its own as well. It’s a great suspension of belief type puzzler with new and interesting mechanics and is just plain fun. The story that goes along is a little weak, but then again that’s just a small part of the game. Well worth a download.

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